


Light a Candle

by victoria_p (musesfool)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: sirius_loving, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-21
Updated: 2005-09-21
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/pseuds/victoria_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Better to light a candle than curse the darkness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light a Candle

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [**the sirius_loving community**](http://www.livejournal.com/community/sirius_loving) and also to suit my pyromaniacal tendencies. Thanks to Mousapelli for the speedy beta. All errors are mine.

Ron makes a face at the scent of petrol, pungent and dangerous, but helps without complaint as they soak the rolls of toilet paper in it. Neither he nor Harry questions Hermione when she says this is the best way to do it -- after seven years, the last spent in more direct danger than the first six combined, they do what she says first and question later. It has saved their lives more than once.

Their lives are in no danger tonight, though, not if they do this correctly. While he and Ron lay the trail inside, Hermione casts protective walls around the house, to protect the Muggle buildings on either side.

Harry holds the solid weight of the lighter in his hand, thumb tracing over the inscription almost absently -- he knows the feel of it by heart by now, the curve of the S, the angles of the L and the sevens.

He knows Sirius would approve, can almost feel his presence in the stuffy old house. They've stripped it of everything valuable -- Harry gave Tonks her choice of family artifacts, Lupin took a few of Sirius's more personal possessions, and Hermione made sure the entire contents of the library now resides at Hogwarts.

All that's left is dust and bad memories; a silent, defeated portrait of an old, mad woman who lost her sons; a threadbare tapestry; the lingering taint of dark magic; and a house that will never know its master again.

It's dark by the time he and Ron have laid the trail of petrol-soaked paper through the house. Ron had suggested doing it with magic, but Harry remembered the glint in Lupin's eye the day he'd given him the lighter.

 _"It was Sirius's." Lupin flicks it open and lights it one-handed in one easy movement, as if it's an old, familiar habit. "Your mum gave it to him for Christmas the year she and your father began dating." He flicks it closed again and offers it to Harry. "I thought you should have it. I'm sure you'll find a good use for it."_

Harry had known then, as he knows now, that Lupin didn't mean he should take up smoking.

As if conjured by the memory, there is a soft pop and Lupin appears. Harry nearly doesn't recognize him, as he's dressed in Muggle jeans and an old black leather jacket that's too big for his thin frame.

"Harry," he says with a nod, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket against the chill evening air.

"Professor." At the wry look Lupin gives him, he says, "Remus. Glad you could make it."

He hadn't exactly sent out invitations, but he'd let Lupin know what his plans were for this evening. Originally, he'd wanted to do it in June, just after he'd finally defeated Voldemort forever, but there had been too many more pressing loose ends to tie up. And the symbolism of doing it tonight, seventeen years to the day since his parents had been killed, was not unappealing.

"Sirius would have appreciated the symmetry," Lupin says with a faint smile, as if reading his mind. "He liked rituals -- loved making them up, you know, for all sorts of ridiculous reasons. And he loved Halloween. Loved the idea of the Muggle and magical colliding for one night, where anything could happen and you could pretend to be anyone at all." He shivers, shoulders hunching beneath the dark leather that smells of dust and smoke, and Harry realizes that this jacket was Sirius's, one of the few tangible piece of him Lupin has left. He glances quickly at Ron and Hermione, heads bent close in the twilight, and considers himself lucky.

He's drawn out of his reverie by the appearance of a regal tabby that stalks down the pavement, tail in the air. The cat stops and, much to Harry's surprise, morphs into Professor McGonagall.

"Close your mouth, Potter. You'll catch flies," she says acerbically, but her eyes are kind behind her glasses. "I know we're not supposed to have favorites, but your father and Sirius -- they were my star pupils, the best and brightest of their generation. When Remus told me -- well, I wouldn't have missed it for the world." She pats him on the shoulder and he notices how tiny her wrist is, how frail her hand. And yet she stands straight as a ruler, unbowed in her green tartan and her old-fashioned hat. "We should have given Sirius a proper send-off, but there just wasn't time. But you'll do right by him now, I'm sure." She gives his shoulder a light squeeze and smiles before moving on to say hello to Ron and Hermione and Lupin.

Fred and George are next, breathless and dressed in dragonhide from head to toe.

"Never could resist a spot of recreational mayhem," Fred says.

"And it's only right to honor Mr. Padfoot, purveyor of fine mischief-managing materials," George adds. "In fact, we were hoping to discuss a variation on the Marauder's Map with old Lupin while we're here."

They greet McGonagall with exclamations of joy that aren't feigned, each sweeping her into a hug that causes her to thwap at them with her purse, but she laughs as she does it, not flustered in the least by their flim-flammery.

Ron and Hermione move to stand next to him as he flicks open the lighter, thumb tracing the engraving on the front as if that will imprint it on his skin -- his mother's message to his godfather -- in place of the scar from Umbridge's quill.

When Harry had first shown them the lighter, Ron had puzzled over the inscription. "Why not just use _Incendio_?"

"It's an old proverb," Hermione had replied. "Better to light a candle--"

"Than curse the darkness," Harry had finished.

Ron had nodded in that way wizards had when they didn't quite understand Muggle things, and let it be.

They stand in a loose semi-circle in the street in front of the house, which looms grim and malevolent above them, unseen by Muggle eyes for decades. McGonagall takes the Put-Outer out of her bag and clicks off the streetlamps, throwing them all into darkness.

Harry bends and flicks the lighter, igniting the trail of petrol-soaked paper snaking up the steps and through the front door. As he backs away, the trail splits into three prongs of fire and races through the house, which is soon engulfed in bright orange flames that lick the night sky.

Ron wraps an arm around Hermione, who leans against Harry, her other arm slipping round his waist, and the three of them smile at each other through the smoke. Harry looks to his left -- the light reflects off McGonagall's glasses, hiding her eyes. Her face is solemn, but Harry can see the tracks of tears glimmering on her cheeks. No doubt due to the smoke, he can almost hear her say. As he watches, Mad-Eye Moody appears, magical eye spinning, scarred face almost inhuman in the dancing shadows cast by the fire.

Beyond them, Lupin's shaggy head is thrown back, eyes trained on the roof, which is rapidly being devoured, or perhaps the sky. He is still as a statue, face unreadable. Tonks appears out of nowhere to stand just behind him, her hair slipping from pink to orange to match the bright tongues of flame consuming her heritage.

When Harry looks over at Fred and George, he sees Bill and Fleur have joined them, and Arthur and Molly, as well. A small hand slips into his and he looks down to see Ginny at his side. He smiles for a moment, glad she's there.

They don't speak. Harry isn't sure he can without his voice cracking -- the smoke, he'd say, and they would all nod in agreement, joining in the lie -- and he isn't sure they need to.

"Sirius was never one to sit around talking when there were things to do," Lupin had said to him, one of the few times he'd worked up the nerve to ask. "He hated being locked up in the house that last year, hated not being able to help you any way he could. Hated it when James and Lily went into hiding, and we were helpless. I think that's one reason he--" Lupin had looked down at his hands, wrapped tightly around his mug of tea, before looking up again and giving Harry a rueful half-smile. "He thought he was doing something to help."

Harry had swallowed hard then, as he does now, and kept his questions to himself for the rest of the night. There will be time later to ask; he has a box of old photographs and a bottle of firewhisky waiting in his flat for the right time to invite Lupin over, to ask about Sirius, about his parents, about everything he has never had the time or the nerve to ask about before.

For now, there is the fire, lighting the night and driving the darkness away, and taking with it the house that had made them all, but Sirius especially, miserable. The smoke curls around them, and Harry thinks he can see a laughing face, a large black dog, a motorbike rising into the night sky, flying towards freedom.

As he surreptitiously wipes his eyes, Harry can't think of a better memorial.

*

 _S- Better to light a candle. -L  
Christmas, 1977_

end

~*~


End file.
